Author: Dave Farquhar

Refurbish a vintage ball mouse

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing

I wanted a mouse for my IBM 5170 and my 386DX-33 systems, but both of them need a serial mouse. I mean old school RS-232 serial, not USB. Finding a serial optical mouse isn’t easy. Plus I wanted something that would look the part. I got an early 90s Microsoft mouse that matches the end of the 286/386 era, and a Logitech C7, but both worked badly. So I had to learn again how to refurbish a vintage ball mouse.

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Led vs lead past tense

Dave Farquhar Windows

Homonyms are terrible things in the English language. One example is led vs lead. Which one is past tense?

If I say “Past Tense Zeppelin” and it means something to you, I just answered your question. If that doesn’t help, I have a story for you to help you remember, and it involves a hard rock band.

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Choose your passwords carefully

Dave Farquhar security
Choose your passwords carefully

I participated in a brief discussion on Twitter the other week about being careful how you choose your passwords. Passwords can and will show up in places you don’t intend. When that happens, you don’t want it to cause a problem. Here’s what happened to me once when I didn’t choose a password carefully.

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How you view message headers in Outlook

Dave Farquhar Office, security
How you view message headers in Outlook

Viewing message headers is helpful for troubleshooting, and also making sure you’re not getting phished. Microsoft moved things around in recent versions of Outlook, so here’s how to view message headers in Outlook–the current version.

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What happened to Faraday Electronics?

Dave Farquhar Hardware
What happened to Faraday Electronics?

Faraday Electronics was, for a brief period of time, a leading maker of integrated chipsets for XT-class PC clones. But if you’re fixing an old XT clone and need a Faraday chip, they can be hard to come by. Knowing what happened to Faraday Electronics can help you in locating spare parts.

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What does the Qualys cloud agent do?

Dave Farquhar security
What does the Qualys cloud agent do?

If you work in a corporate environment, there’s a chance you see something called the Qualys Cloud Agent running on your computer. And information about this mysterious agent can be hard to come by? What does the Qualys cloud agent do? How does it work? I’m glad you asked.

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Windows Zip folders slow? The fix.

Dave Farquhar Windows
Windows Zip folders slow? The fix.

The other day my son was working with a Zip file and getting frustrated. He was trying to delete a large number of files from it, and the CPU went to 100% usage and never finished. Here’s how I got him around the problem of high CPU usage with Zip files, or Windows Zip folders being slow.
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Ryobi Brushless 20 in. Walk Behind Push Lawn Mower review

Dave Farquhar DIY
Ryobi Brushless 20 in. Walk Behind Push Lawn Mower review

After a good experience with a smaller model, I bought a larger 20-inch Ryobi lawn mower. This is my Ryobi Brushless 20 in. Walk Behind Push Lawn Mower review.

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Who makes Masterforce hand tools for Menards?

Dave Farquhar DIY
Who makes Masterforce hand tools for Menards?

Masterforce is Menards’ house brand for power tools and hand tools. As a house brand, they are less expensive than the big name brands. But are Masterforce hand tools good? And who makes Masterforce hand tools for Menards? I did some digging to find out.

Masterforce hand tools are made by Apex Tool Group, a company owned by Bain Capital. Apex also makes several brands you may have heard of, including Wiss, Allen, and Weller.

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Force a Qualys Cloud Agent scan

Dave Farquhar security
Force a Qualys Cloud Agent scan

Unlike its leading competitor, the Qualys Cloud Agent scans automatically. This means you don’t have to schedule scans, which is good, but it also means the Qualys agent essentially has free will. The latest results may or may not show up as quickly as you’d like. How to initiate an agent scan on demand was easily the most frequent question I got during the five years I supported Qualys for a living. Here’s how to force a Qualys Cloud Agent scan.

You can force a Qualys Cloud Agent scan on Windows by toggling a registry key, or from Linux or Mac OS X by running the cloudagentctl.sh shell script.

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